a little advice

So i want to be a civil engineer.
i've been paying for my school for the past 3 years.(you know attending to a community college and working full time - 2 jobs 3 at some point))
I dont have any more classes to take at my community college , its time for me to transfer to a 4 year college.
I want to go to njit or rutgers ,but they kind of expensive and NJ does not offer financial aid for Daca students.
So what i am thinking is to stop attending college for like 1 year and get a technical certificate( you know 6-12 months of technical school),then work with it so i can afford to pay for my engineering degree.

But i dont know if i should do that.
Are there any other ways to afford college other than loans?
And if i get a technical degree, is there anything associated with civil enginerring that will help me get experience?
I dont want to stop now, hope you guys can help me, thanks.

other than loans? limited amounts of scholarships

Seems like a solid plan. You could also do what you were doing but take less classes.

I think you should just pay for classes as you can afford them rather than to go cold turkey or get a certificate. As you get older and spend more time away from the drudgery of college life, it gets harder to get back into it. You can be an apprentice and make money in a field rather than pay to learn.

It won't be easy or fast but when you take two classes a semester especially going to a university taking your major classes, you'll have more time with them too. There will be an adjustment time when you take serious science and math classes and it may not be anything like the community college. Also remember you don't have any more cupcake classes like at the CC so every class matters now so it may not be a terrible thing to take things slow at first.